Program Offers Job Skills To Seniors

March 20, 1986|By Margo Harakas, Staff Writer

Fourteen months ago, Bernard Rynowecer was in a deep, brooding depression. ``I`d had a heart attack that left me in pretty bad shape,`` says the 65- year-old Boca Raton man. ``And I would just lie around and feel sorry for myself.``

With only Social Security to keep him and his wife afloat, Rynowecer was struggling each month to pay his bills.

A friend suggested Rynowecer check out the Senior Community Service Employment Program in Fort Lauderdale. ``I really had no idea how they could help me. I was sure they couldn`t,`` he says.

Almost immediately, Rynowecer was placed in a training program with Broward County Social Services, and today he is an experienced part-time intake counselor in the Youth Development division.

Rynowecer, a former businessman, says that it was considered a miracle that he survived his heart attack three years ago. ``But this,`` he says of the psychological transformation that has taken place as a result of his employment, ``is just as big a miracle.``

Rynowecer, given an excellent evaluation by his training supervisors, is now seeking a permanent job in the private sector.

Frieda Lewis, 66, has already landed her permanent position. She was living on $344 a month when she first came to the program. She`s now a clerk-typist for Health and Rehabilitative Services in Lauderhill. After a run of bad luck, Lewis happily reports, ``Things seem to be going my way now.``

Forty-four people are enrolled in the Senior Employment Program. Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons, the program, begun in 1969, operates in 110 cities in 33 states. Its raison d `etre is to provide training and find jobs for the 55 and older worker who meets the government`s guidelines for the economically disadvanataged.

``Many of our people haven`t worked for years,`` says project director Clarence Rudolph. ``Some have never worked.``

Makes no difference. Their interests and skills are evaluated, they are given a physical and are then placed in a training program with a host agency. And according to Rose Rendina, job developer, within six months 60 percent of them have permanent jobs.

``We have so many jobs available we can`t even fill them,`` says Rendina, a 60-year-old divorced woman, who entered the job market three years ago.

The training is done through a host agency such as Job Service of Florida, Social Security, HRS, American Lung Association or Broward Center for the Blind. While they are in training, the workers are paid a minimum salary by Senior Employment. The wages generally range from $4 to $8.50 an hour.

``When we feel they are job ready,`` says Rendina, ``the agency will either pick them up (if they have an opening), or we`ll find a job for them in the private sector.``

Rose Snee, job developer in the Pembroke Pines office, is an animated, straight-talking 82-year-old widow who doesn`t just sit in her office waiting for clients and jobs to show up. ``A lot of people out there don`t know about us,`` she says.

So she gets out and spreads the word with evangelical enthusiasm. One day, she saw a woman picking up papers along the highway. ``I`d seen her someplace before so I stopped to ask her what she was doing. She said she had to make some money, that she couldn`t pay her bills.``

Snee told the woman to come see her the next day. ``I`ll get you a job,`` she said. Sure enough, the woman is now working full time in a bank making $250 a week. ``She`s happy as can be,`` says Snee.

Snee has no patience with those who say they`re too old. She got her present job, her first in about 50 years, when she was 79. She was a widow with $50 to her name, and a mountain of medical bills, the result of her husband`s protracted illness.

``I tell them,`` says Snee, of disheartened clients, `` `Don`t cry to me. I had the same problems.` `` And then she proceeds to find them employment.

Many of those in the program are on Social Security, so they want only part- time jobs. But others, those between 55 and 62 particularly, want and need full time employment.

Because many of the older workers haven`t worked or haven`t worked in a long time, they lack confidence. To fire them up, the Senior Employment Program includes ``on-going motivational training.``

``We teach people how to approach interviews, how to put together a resume,`` says Rudolph. ``We talk about the whole aura of walking into a room and taking a seat.``

Rudolph remembers his first meeting with Frieda Lewis. ``She was so passive. She seemed so dejected, so sad.``

Her first job experience, he said, did not go well. But on the second job, she excelled. Her boss couldn`t praise her enough. ``After that, she just blossomed,`` says Rudolph. ``It was as though she became another person.``